


Downtown

by toucanpie



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 09:59:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4133304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toucanpie/pseuds/toucanpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing is ever easy for Jarvis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Downtown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paperclipbitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbitch/gifts).



"Oh god lord," said Jarvis for the fifth time that day.

Young Thompson had drawn a dick on the wall again. And not just any penis, either. This one had realistic spurts of semen shooting out in all directions.

"Oh no, this won't do at all," Jarvis muttered to himself.

Sometimes he didn't know why he'd agreed to adopt Jack. Ever since the teenager had arrived there'd been nothing but constant genitalia artwork and terrible renditions of One Direction songs. The only reason he hadn't taken the child out the back and put him in a garbage compactor was that the customers seemed to like him.

With a sigh, he went to go fetch the scrubbing brush and a tub of warm water. Perhaps by the time the main rush hit, he could at least have the hairy testicles gone. 

-

"Nice decor," Sousa said, leaning on the counter and inclining his head towards the wall.

Jarvis groaned and hid his head in his hands. Fate would have it that only his respectable, favourite customers wandered in on the large penis drawing days.

"Don't look at it, please," he begged. "He seems to have found permanent markers this time. Nothing I try is working."

Even his usual combination of Vanish and industrial cleaning fluid was failing to budge the veiny monster.

"Hey, there," Sousa said, peering down at him. "Have you thought about just leaving it this time? I hear with young ones if you pay less attention to the tantrums, they're less inclined to throw them."

Jarvis smiled wryly, raising his head. Daniel always meant so _well_. Was always so kind and earnest. Honestly Jarvis was the worst coffee shop owner in the whole world for the list of things he wanted to do him.

"I wish there were tantrums but no! I hardly ever see him. It's just dicks, dicks, dicks all the time! I'm starting to wonder if he isn't trying to tell me something."

"Puberty is a hard time," Sousa said, taking a sip of his coffee. Jarvis had made that for him with extra care and only briefly wondered what it might be like to take its place.

"Quite right, quite right," he said briskly, pushing his lustful thoughts aside for another lonely night with another bottle of bordeaux. "I'm sure he'll grow out of it soon."

He plastered on his bravest smile and went to pick up the scrubbing brush again.

"I'm just going to go give the balls another try, you enjoy your drink."

Sousa raised the cup in a salute and Jarvis turned away before he vaulted the counter and dragged the man back to his lair for some very inappropriate behaviour indeed.

\- 

"Oh, excellent," said Peggy, examining the artwork with her clipboard in hand. "I see he's really been developing his creative side."

Jarvis nodded wearily. He really was very fond of Jack's social worker but sometimes her bullheaded cheeriness got a little grating.

"I don't suppose you could have a little word with him, could you?" he said, desperately.

"About what?" Peggy said. "A career in the arts?"

The damned woman, the corners of her mouth were definitely twitching.

"About maybe slightly less penises in the future, perhaps?" Jarvis said delicately. "It's not that I'm not supportive, just that I have to think about the value of the place."

"Why, planning on selling soon? Setting up shop somewhere else with a handsome vet, say?"

Jarvis' finger pointed itself at her automatically, even though they both knew that sort of thing never worked.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said archly. "And actually I think this would be a good time for us to discuss the boy's terrible crush on you."

"Oh god, must we?" Peggy said, her shoulders sagging. "No, I think not. I'm just going to write it off as complicated teenage feelings. Look, here, there's even a box for it."

Jarvis leaned in to look at the form, but she whipped it away again before he could get more than a glance.

"Good luck with Sousa, though," she added. "I hear he has a giant -"

"Oh god."

"- apartment downtown. Don't look so horrified. He could probably make you very happy."

"Oh yes, whatever, have your fun," Jarvis said, waving her away from him. "Isn't it time for you to leave now? I'm sure I can hear the devil saying he misses you."

She rolled her eyes but patted him fondly on the arm.

"Don't be silly, Jarvis," she said. "I am the devil."

-

By the time Jack got home from school, Jarvis had managed to rearrange the sitting area so a potted bamboo plant covered the worst of the spurting penis. 

Not that Jack even gave his little mural a glance as he sauntered through the shop, taking a cookie from the display.

"Now young man -" Jarvis said, but Jack just flipped him the bird and walked through the kitchen door like he hadn't a care in the world.

"Oh dear," Jarvis said to the coffee press. "No, we're going to have to do better than that, aren't we?"

-

He desperately hated leaving the coffeeshop for anything other than the occasional croissant and stroll by the river but the whole miserable situation required drastic measures.

Removing his hat and tightening his tie, he stepped through the doorway of the small bookshop and headed straight for the section marked 'Family & Parenting'.

No-one attempted eye contact but he made sure to fix his gaze solely on the display of brightly coloured books just in case. Once he got there the true severity of the situation became clear. It was all babies, babies, babies, even more babies that apparently no-one could put to sleep, and ah, something about dealing with difficult teenagers.

He took the book off the shelf and flicked to the contents page. It read like some kind of gloriously satanic bible - sex, drugs, alcohol, more sex. Oh, he thought miserably, to be afflicted with such common problems! Nowhere was there a chapter on how to deal with incessant drawings of cocks on beautiful floral wallpaper.

He closed the book, placed it back on the shelf, and selected its neighbour - 'How to Talk so Teens will Listen'.

"Well, put your message in the words of One Direction, obviously," he muttered, examing the blurb on the back cover.

"Spoken like a true Directioner," came a voice from his right.

Jarvis jumped, clutching the book to his chest reflexively.

"Please don't surprise a man who's going through a very traumatic time in his life," he said, turning to face the interloper."Especially not one who is having to resort to help books so he can talk to his son."

Mr Sousa, who did of course own the bookshop - not that Jarvis was a fan of admitting he knew such a thing - looked neither concerned nor apologetic. Really he was an unfeeling bastard wholly undeserving of such a well put together face.

"Would you like a hand?"

"Not really," Jarvis said. "But go on anyway. I doubt I'll manage to find anything helpful but one probably ought to try."

"That's the spirit," Sousa said, propping his stick against the display and nudging him to the left.

"Oh, I see, I'm in the way, am I?"

"Don't take offense," Sousa said, smiling his charming smile. "But this'll go quicker and be less painful if you let me get hands on my stock."

"Well at least somebody's getting their hands on something," Jarvis said, sighing. "Do you think it could be some kind of sexual repression? Maybe he doesn't even realise he's doing it."

"Oh, he realises."

Sousa pulled a book from one of the lower shelves and handed it over. Jarvis took a look at the cover and hmmed.

"Well," he said, opening it to a random page and then shutting it again once he got the gist. "If you're sure it'll help."

"Quite sure. You know what your problem is?"

"No," Jarvis said, though he knew all too well what at least one of his problems was. It was standing in front of him.

"You have a horny teenager. And that's it."

Sousa wrapped his fingers round the edge of the book in Jarvis' hands and pushed it into his chest.

"Read and weep, pal. Then sit him down, give him the chat, and see how quickly he never wants to draw a dick again."

"Well if you're quite certain," Jarvis said tentatively. "You're sure talk of reproduction won't just make things worse?"

"Trust me," Sousa said, releasing his grip on the book with a reassuring pat. "He'll be way too traumatised by the indignity to even want to pick up a pen."

It seemed far too good to be true. Certainly Jarvis couldn't see how it would ever work.

"And you're really quite sure? It was like that for you? Only I need something that will actually work, you see. End of my tether and all that."

Daniel chuckled in that horrible way of his that made Jarvis want to chuckle along with him despite not getting the joke. "It worked some, I suppose, but then the birds and the bees were only ever going to be half relevant to me."

"Oh," said Jarvis, to cover the fact that he had very little idea of what Sousa was talking about. "Wait, which half wasn't relevant? I mean which are the birds and which are the bees?"

Sousa shrugged and started making his way back to the counter. "Never did work that out, myself."

It was hardly an answer at all, but he was soon too far away for Jarvis to question him further.

"Oh fiddlesticks," he said to himself, balling his hand against the display. "Honestly, no wonder you're single and stuck with a delinquent teenager, you sad barista, you."

-

The book was entitled 'Let's Talk About Sex' and it only took a few pages for Jarvis to begin to see the logic in Sousa's plan. If the idea of talking to Jack about even half the things the book mentioned was positively horrible, he could see that it would be twice as traumatic for Jack. And if there was ever anything to put you off drawing giant penises, the threat of another man-to-man talk about ejaculation and the longevity of sperm would probably do the trick very well.

"Thank god no-one printed this stuff when I was his age," he said to the cat, while he sipped his tea and turned another page. "Oh goody, look, another labelled diagram of the anus."

-

Sousa was back at the shop the next day, looking disgustingly enticing in an incredibly ugly raincoat.

"You should really let me burn that," Jarvis said, as Daniel shrugged it off and set it over the back of a chair. "It's hideous."

"Says the man with penises all over his abode."

Jarvis adjusted his collar primly and rose above replying to that comment. "Your usual?"

"Only if it's not to hideous for you to make up."

Jarvis sighed and reached beneath the counter for a mug. "A man makes one remark about an ugly raincoat."

Sousa smiled as he came over to the counter and leaned on it. "Could be it's a gift from my mother."

"Not possible," Jarvis said, working the press. "Despite never meeting her, I'm quite sure your mother has much better taste."

"Ah, you're right," Sousa said checking his watch and then hooking a stool with his stick and dragging it closer. "She's a very fashionable lady; I let her down every day."

"Not quite every day," Jarvis said, though it veered a little too close to a compliment for his liking. He blamed the familiarity with which Daniel was looking at him. "You carry off a suit reasonably well."

Sousa climbed his way onto the stool and then set his elbow back on the counter like it belonged there. 

"Most over-dressed bookstore owner you ever met, right?"

"I can't say I meet a lot of bookshop owners so I wouldn't truthfully know."

He set Daniel's coffee in front of him and slid the jug of milk across the counter within reach.

"What's this," Sousa said, looking at it. "We gotta pour our own milk now?"

"Oh, hush," Jarvis said, as another customer stepped through the door and started towards the counter. "Well, fine, have yourself some shortbread if you're really that put out. But I think you can manage a little milk pouring, all in all."

-

The new customer in question was of course Mrs McCreedy, late 70s and very partial to a jam doughnut or two.

She gave them both a detailed update on each of her cats and then moved onto her seven grandchildren, all while never touching her three sugar beverage of choice (Jarvis used to judge her for such a monstrosity until he realised he was just jealous her dentures were so impervious to sugar).

Just as she left, Mr Pell swung by the counter with his usual vigour, determined to discuss a letter he was writing to the borough about the selection at his local library. It was partway through this conversation that Jarvis saw Sousa pick himself a newspaper and discreetly relocate to his table.

He watched with half-focused affection as Daniel carefully unfolded the pages and started perusing. Ah to be on the recieving end of such gentle ministrations, he thought, and not stuck behind the counter listening to such bizarre humdrum.

"That is most terrible," he said loudly, interrupting Mr Pell's fourth complaint about flagrant misuses of public money. "Have you thought at all about setting up a rival library? I'm sure you'd be incredibly capable."

With the man was still looking at him in suspicious confusion, he stepped to the side and away from the counter.

"Heaven save us from my regulars," he muttered while slipping into the seat next to Sousa. "Please pretend you have some vitally important complaint that will take the rest of the morning for me to resolve to your satisfaction."

Daniel raised his head as Jarvis made a pleading motion with his hands.

"Absolutely any complaint will do, really."

"This coffee is not - warm enough," Sousa said slowly, raising his mug. "Also, you didn't bring me the pastry I asked for."

"Good, good," Jarvis encouraged. "A little louder, maybe?"

"In fact I think this coffee shop owes me many pastries, what with my regular patronage."

"Of course, of course." 

"And I expect a much more personal service," Sousa continued, his voice getting stronger. "In general but also this Friday, at a restuarant of your choosing."

"What?" said Jarvis. "Oh! Yes, I mean of course. Anything to please my customers."

Well, not quite. If Mr Pell wanted to meet him at some fine establishment on Friday he was going to be sorely disappointed. But not Daniel Sousa, oh no.

"If you'll excuse me, Mr Pell," he said, rising smoothly. "I think we're closing early today. I need to go have a short lie down and then order some new doillies."

"What?" the man said, casting about as if some crusading angel might save him from having to drink his coffee elsewhere for once. "You're open til six."

"Not today I'm afraid," said Jarvis with very little shame at all. "Off you go now, I've very important business to attend to, if you don't mind."

"But I do." 

The man seemed to still be mouthing things even as Jarvis closed the door between them, but Jarvis pretended he didn't understand the meaning of shaken fists and just waved goodbye as he flipped the open sign to closed.

Turning around, he took a small breath.

"Would you mind repeating that last part for me again?" he said, staring at Daniel. "Only I think my brain may be playing tricks on me and making me hear things I want to hear rather things that were actually said."

Daniel stood up in a very gentlemanly manner, as restrained as always as he smoothed at the front of his lovely maroon jumper.

"You free to make dinner on Friday?"

"Oh definitely," Jarvis said, his palms squeaking gratefully against the glass of the door. "No, that's wonderful. I honestly can't think of anything better."

-


End file.
